which intervened he was supported by the hopes of religion; and the last words which fell from his lips were an allusion to that passage in the epistle to the Hebrews, "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost," &c. His loss is deplored by a widow, a numerous family, and a wide circle of friends; but they sorrow not even as others which have no hope. The consistency of his life forbids a doubt that, through the merits of Christ, in whom alone he trusted, he is now happy in heaven. His sorrowing friends, sensible that their sympathies are not needed by him, are chiefly anxious that a stroke so sudden and severe may be made a blessing to survivors.

REV. THOMAS KING.

On Wednesday, the 13th of October, at Bedford, the Rev. Thomas King, aged 78 years, for upwards of thirty-one years pastor of the strict baptist meeting house of that town, sincerely and deeply regretted.

REV. JOHN STEVENS.

Died, Oct. 6, in the seventy-second year of his age, Mr. John Stevens, many years pastor of the baptist church at Meard'scourt, Soho. Some peculiarities of sentiment prevented Mr. Stevens from taking an active part in our public institutions, or associating very generally with his ministering brethren in the metropolis, but we have been informed that he was an eminently devout and holy man, as well as an able preacher.

RECENT DEATH.

MR. T. BURY.

The baptist church in Salford has recently been called to sustain a heavy loss in the removal of one of its oldest deacons, Mr. Thos. Bury of the Adelphi, He was made a subject of divine grace in early youth, and joined the church at Accrington, then under the pastoral care of Mr. Jackson, since of Taunton. He subsequently became a member of the church at George-street, Manchester, from which, in company with several others, he was dismissed a few years ago, to commence a new interest in Salford. The infant church elected him to the office of deacon, a mark of their confidence he retained till death.

The bright example our departed friend exhibited for thirty years of his life was solemnly enforced by the manner of his removal. In the afternoon of the 31st of August he seemed in usual health, but while engaged in conversation with his father, was seized with a stroke of apoplexy, which, early next morning, terminated his earthly existence. During the few lucid moments

MR. W. WHITE.

The church at Hackney, under the pastoral care of Dr. Cox and Mr. Katterns, has sustained a severe loss by the death of Mr. White, who has been, during the last eight years, one of its deacons.

Mr. White had been ill for many months, his disease being of the nature of consumption or decline. He had entered the fiftysixth year of his age, and departed this life, at his residence in Hackney-terrace, on the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 20, 1847, leaving behind a sorrowing widow, but no children. He did not speak much about the state of his mind, in reference to the eternal world; but an awful sense of his nearness to it seemed to occupy his thoughts, much of his time being spent in silent meditation on the solemn prospect. At intervals, however, he expressed himself cheerfully, as "without a doubt." From a feeling that he might, at his time of life, be more useful than he had been heretofore, he avowed a desire to live, were it according to the will of his heavenly Father. He remained quite sensible to the last, and in him patience had her "perfect work."

Of his preparedness for dissolution, his | grieving friends require for their consolation and encouragement no other evidence than the uniform testimony of his holy life and blameless conversation. His regular use of religious means, and constant observance of sacred ordinances; his zeal for the interests of the church and the edifying character of his public devotions; his unaffected attachment to his pastors, his manifest love of the brethren, and the unstudied courtesy which marked his intercourse with fellow officers; the punctuality, fidelity, and efficiency with which he performed his official duties as treasurer of the church, and above all, the unbending integrity and obvious transparency of his whole character and conduct, impressed every observer with the deep conviction that he was a true and faithful follower of Christ. To these higher qualifications for the deacon's office, he added those of a mind well instructed, a ready and an agreeable utterance, and conciliatory manners. The loss of his bright example and able services is keenly felt, and the memory of his great worth will long be cherished. To few men has the language of the Psalmist been more applicable: "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace."

MISCELLANEA.

BRITISH ANTI-STATE-CHURCH ASSOCIATION.

The executive committee, in accordance with the resolution adopted by the triennial conference in May last, have appointed Mr. John Carvell Williams to the office of secre

British and Foreign Bible Society at cost price, and sold in six months 5000 copies, chiefly to servants in the squares and mews; the Hon. Dowager Lady Grey being treasurer. She observes that Lord Robert Grosvenor has said there are more than 100,000 female servants in London, and more than 1,000,000 in England and Wales; that another gentleman, who is an able statist, says the female servants in the metropolis are 108,000, of this number 14,000 to 16,000 are daily changing places; and that there are five societies in London for the spiritual benefit of its overgrown poor populationthe District Visiting Society, the Pastoral Aid Society, the Christian Instruction Society, the London City Mission, and the Scripture Readers' Association. She adds, "There are agents to visit and instruct Lascars, Italians, Germans, cabmen, and policemen, and it is right and proper these should be looked after, but why should domestic servants be overlooked?"

RYDE, ISLE OF WIGHT.

The friends at this place to whose praiseworthy efforts we adverted in our number for August, inform us that agreeable to the advice of several worthy friends visiting the island in the past season, and under the sanction and recommendation of the ministers in the neighbourhood, they are endeavouring to obtain a comfortable chapel, in a public part of the town, at a distance from the present place of worship, and a minister whose heart is filled with love to God and souls, and whose mind is stored with divine knowledge; the charitable aid of Christian friends, and but that to accomplish the undertaking, the aid of the county association, and the Baptist Home Missionary Society is needful. room they have

square, Paternoster-row, London ;" excepting money orders, which are to be made payable to Dr. Thomas Price, the treasurer, as heretofore.

A public meeting of this association was held in the London Tavern, Bishopsgate Street, on Thursday evening, October 21st. The large room was crowded, and the proceedings were very animated. Energetic measures are to be adopted immediately to bring the object of the society before the public, by means of lectures and deputations, in different parts of the country.

DOMESTIC SERVANTS.

A lady informs us, that a few ladies last year formed themselves into a society to employ a colporteur to sell to servants the books of the

In their comfortless

COLLECTANEA.

LONDON POST OFFICE.

a

As it is well known in the provincial towns that there is no delivery of letters in London on Sunday, the number contained in the bags from the ports is very small, so that ordinarily, six clerks and a few messengers despatch all the business before divine service; and this work is chiefly to accommodate the foreign ambassadors, as all government despatches arrive by special messengers.

The projected despatch of the mails on Sunday evening, as hinted at in the Times of September 24, (vide Mr. Hill's evidence before the Postage Committee), is a specious pretence to hide what is really contemplated,

viz., the arrival, delivery, and despatch of correspondence on Sunday as on other days.

To show that the mere despatch of letters which arrive by the present Sunday bags for forward towns would be extremely unbusiness like, it need only be mentioned, that for this purpose all the post office bags must be "made up" on Sunday evening, in number about 896, which work would require nearly the full force of the office, as every division must be provided with its officers, whether there be many or few letters; and all the official accounts must be sent to the post

masters.

It requires no great amount of foresight to perceive, that of necessity the above number of bags must also eventually arrive in London on Sunday mornings, in order that no one town should be favoured above another; and thus, having once inserted the thin end of Mr. Hill's wedge, the Post-office would soon drive it home. London would demand the delivery of letters which might arrive on Sunday morning, and 600 letter-carriers, including the General and London district force, would be turned into the streets at half-past seven a.m., and it would occupy longer time in delivering on Sunday, as houses of business would not be opened, and private houses would not quickly answer the postman's knock. 300 of these letter carriers would have to return in the evening to officiate as sorters and messengers, so that they would enjoy no sabbath either for their bodies or their souls.

As soon as the Sunday delivery shall have commenced, hundreds of merchants' clerks will have to attend at the counting-houses to receive their employers' letters, and to post off to their suburban residences; and it would be folly to suppose that the answers which would be written to those letters could not be sent away on Sunday, when the evening mails were being despatched, as only a little more sorting would devolve upon the officials. Back again, then, would these clerks have to go to London to post the replies.

The clerks, sorters, and letter-carriers, at present commence work at five a.m., and finish their labours at eight p. m.; so that Sunday is absolutely required for their relaxation and repose from toil.

The mere receipt and despatch of the mails on Sunday would employ 124 clerks; and if there were also one delivery in the morning, 200 would be needed, including the London district clerks, as the suburbs would also expect a delivery.

Such a measure would inflict most serious injury on the clerks, sorters, and letter-carriers of the Post-office, who exceed 1,500 in number. Many of these are actively employed in Sunday-schools and Christian instruction, and hail the Lord's day as a high privilege. Indeed, it is well known that some of the most active and useful men in

religious societies are employed in the Postoffice.

It was observed in a morning paper a few days since, that if a delivery of letters took place on Sunday, the feelings of the publie need not be offended by a scarlet livery and the blue coat tipt with red, but that the lettercarrier might appear in plain clothes. But has this writer who is so cautious of hurting the feelings of the general public, no compunctious visitings for those of 600 carriers, who have souls to save, and minds needing spiritual instruction on the Lord's day ? Would clerks, sorters, or letter-carriers be able or inclined to attend public worship in the morning, after rising to go to Post-office labour at five a.m. Would they be more ready in the afternoon, when their labours would again commence at five o'clock, and not terminate till eight?

It is now necessary to be up and to be doing, as the announcement of sabbath work at the Post-office, and its being carried into operation, will be simultaneous; and the voice of the public can alone prevent the threatened evil by earnest and energetic protest, in the shape of public meetings and petitions to the legislature.-Record.

DR. PUSEY'S RULE OF FAITH.

To

In the preface to a series of Roman Catholic devotional works, "adapted to the use of the English Church," as quoted in The English Churchman, Dr. Pusey gives the following account of his own mental history, tracing his errors, we believe, to their true source-the teaching of the Church of England :-" Directed," he says, "to Christian antiquity by the church in which he was admitted to minister, in her was his soul fed as in a large pasture, in her was at rest. her, as having the pure tradition of apostolic teaching, and, in her consentient witness, apostolic authority, he yielded his full faith. In her he was as in his home. Hers was to him his native language. In her he sought all he wished to know, and in her found it. Her thoughts, her exposition of Holy Scripture, her faith, are his. Nothing jarred there. What she said, he wished in his measure to say; what she rejected, he rejected; where she was doubtful, he was content to be doubtful with her; what she knew not as part of the faith, he could not receive as his; where she was silent, he had no wish to pry. And when these troubled times came, in her, in another way, was his rest. Taught, himself, by the Church of England, and by her directed to Christian antiquity, and finding in her what he had been taught, (only, it is no disparagement to say, more deeply than has been common among us,) he could not think that they whom the church acknowledged as fathers, would disown as children those who so revered them."

FRENCH LITERATURE.

Cheap editions of translations of French novels being now freely circulated, especially by hawking booksellers at the railway stations, it is desirable that it should be universally known that they are reputed to be in general of extremely immoral tendency. The Record says, "The present state of the French press in this department, is sufficient to throw suspicion on whatever comes from it. We need no further evidence of this than the words of the French attorney-general in the recent trial for perjury arising out of a fatal duel between two men of letters in Paris. We hope,' he said, that the present condition of men of letters is momentary; that these men will resume the dignity of the character they have lost, and that they may be listened to without ' danger.'"

ROMISH BAPTISM.

The London correspondent of the Edinburgh Witness says, "A very singular circumstance has recently occurred in the county of Cornwall, which illustrates, in a striking degree, the means now adopted by Roman catholic priests to make converts to their religion. I shall give it shortly, only premising, that it is not, as many of your readers might at first sight believe, a stupid hoax, but a grave narrative, attested, in its main facts, by the priest, who is the chief actor in it. Some time ago, a young lady, the eldest daughter of a respectable family in Falmouth, became acquainted with a catholic family, who had recently come to the same town. The intimacy was permitted by her parents, on condition that they should not attempt to lead her over to their faith. This was, for some time, observed; but religion generally was a prominent topic of discourse; and the catholics lent the young lady a number of Puseyite books, which was keeping the letter of their promise, though they had the designed effect of gradually undermining her attachment to the English church. Soon after, the catholic family removed from Falmouth to Helston, in the same county; and, on parting, they gave the young lady a sacred medal, which, it appears, they expected to work as a charm upon her in leading her to conversion; but to her they represented it as a simple keepsake. More recently, the young lady received permission from her parents to visit her friends at Helston. While there, she joined the catholics-remained in their communion for about a month; after which she again returned to the Protestant faith. I need say nothing of the levity of temper displayed by the girl in these repeated changes. What I wish to fix attention upon is, the manner in which the first of them was brought about. The girl's own statement is, that while resid

ing at Helston, her friends sent for some holy water, telling her that a child was to be baptized next day. The young lady expressed a wish to be present at the ceremony. When friend's bed-room, who there spoke to her on the next day came, she was sent for to her the subject of religion, urging her to join the who was then in the house. This she recatholic church, and at once to see the priest, fused to do; but her friend left the room, the apartment, put certain questions, which, and immediately afterwards the priest entered in her agitation, she scarcely knew how she not sprinkling, the holy water in her face. answered, and finished by actually throwing, It was, to use the words of the narrative, an assault, and not a baptism. As a baptism, however, the young lady was persuaded to regard it; and, thinking that she was now committed, she attended confession and partook of the mass for about a month, when, as I said, she, disgusted by a further acquaintance with the catholic religion, resolved to abandon it, and return to the faith of her fathers. Such is the girl's story. That of the priest, who has published a letter in the Cornish newspapers upon the subject, is somewhat different. He positively denies the assault, and the compulsion, and the intimidation. He states, that the girl calmly listened to him, and intelligibly answered him, and that he baptized her with her own free consent. But he does not deny that the whole took place in a private room, without a single witness, not even the ladies who had been so zealous for her conversion; he does not deny that he had had no previous conversation with her on the subject, having only heard of her good disposition from others. In what he does deny, it is to be observed, there is merely assertion against assertion, for no one was present but the girl and the priest. Your readers will judge, whether that is the usual way of celebrating the baptism of a willing convert in the Romish church; and, further, it must be remembered, that the priest has a much greater interest in denying the story than the girl had in inventing it.

Not the least strange part of the story remains to be told: the parish clergyman whom the young lady attended, was made aware of her wavering attachment to Protestantismshe even herself sought counsel and advice from him, which he repulsed with harshness and contumely; when she wished to return into the bosom of the church, he refused to receive her unless she would submit to a public confession of her fault; and, finally, when she was received by another clergyman of the same church, he published a volume of letters professed to be written to her as dissuasives from popery, the whole of which the young lady has since declared she never received nor heard of till she saw them in their published form."